HDD vs SSD - is upgrading your hard drive ACTUALLY worth it?

[@PressRecord777]

Just a point of caution for anyone interested in going the M.2 route: M.2 is a _form factor,_ and supports two different flavors - SATA and NVMe. Though they look virtually identical, these have different connector configurations and are NOT interchangeable, so you'll need to verify which is available on your motherboard. Also, a SATA-based M.2 will enjoy little if any performance benefit over a conventional SSD as they are both bus-limited to SATA speeds, whereas NVMe (which sits on the PCIe bus) will see a five to ten-fold throughput improvement over SATA, depending on which PCI version the motherboard supports.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

This.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

👍

[@ernestgalvan9037]

MVMe & SATA can be attached to the same connector, IF the connector and interface chip are properly sorted. I have a Sabrent external M.2 enclosure, which accepts BOTH MVMe (M-key) AND SATA (B/M-key). It’s a modern USB3-rated, with USB-C connector. Best $25 I’ve spent on drive adapter, solves a big problem. And it has a hinged cover, rather than the ubiquitous slider cover. Nice.

[@breakfast7595]

It is also important to take into account how many PCIe lanes (not slots, lanes) your computer has as well as your generation of PCIe, and whether your PCIe is going directly to the CPU or using the chipset. For many people this isn't a concern. But if you are planning on trying to use a NVMe drive with 2 GPUs, or if you plan on multiple NVMe drives, you'll need to take this into account.

[@rdspam]

Beat me to it. “NVMe”, not “M.2”. An M.2 SATA SSD drive is no faster than a traditional SATA SSD. “Digital drive” is also odd terminology. A mechanical hard drive stores 1’s and 0’s, just like all others.

[@RandommBoyo]

Gotta love it when the video isn't filled with unnecessary talk nor editing, just straight and simply into the point and clear examples. Great vid!

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Thanks! Video editing is a skill I'm trying to get better at. I appreciate the support 👍

[@mrquicky]

The 5 different app startup time runs seem to suggest that the application is being read from the disk on every launch. The kernel will keep the application in RAM on subsequent runs so exiting the application and restarting multiple times is meaningless from a drive access time standpoint.

[@lifeisagift.cherisheverymoment]

For my money, SSDs are definitely worth the upgrade.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

100% yes! That's what I hoped to demonstrate for anyone who perhaps didn't even know what an SSID drive was 👍

[@lifeisagift.cherisheverymoment]

@@AskYourComputerGuy I upgraded from HDDs to SSDs three years ago, and at the time never thought to time the difference, but I do recall it was a substantial improvement. I just purchased a new computer with an M.2 and I installed an additional SSD. I am somewhat disappointed with the boot time, but that's a function of the BIOS, not the M.2. I still experience significant improvement in execution speed once the POST is finished. Overall I am very happy with my computer purchase.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@lifeisagift.cherisheverymoment awesome!

[@bhuntin08]

@AskYourComputerGuy any update to share on that medicate video you promised when you released that Ventoy video?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@bhuntin08 it's on the drawing board. Just got married 2 days ago and moving in 5 days. Got a backlog of videos planned 👍

[@saif080]

Once you go SSD, you can't go back. I bought my first 500GB SSD in 2016 for €165 and have replaced all hard drives to SSD by now. I have got a 4TB SSD for €135 this month as a game drive. The boot up, app opening and game load times are unbelievably faster with SSDs. It is a much enjoyable experience of using your PC.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Agreed!

[@GatsuKS]

Not only loading but framerate stability. Games work considerably more fluidly with far less stutters and frame drops.

[@addydiesel6627]

The speed is because of DDR RAM on the ssd. There is no difference on the SATA interface. Only Nvme on the pci-e line is faster.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@addydiesel6627 if the SSD has a data cache chip onboard, yes that will absolutely make it faster. But the primary speed difference between a mechanical drive and an SSD is the lack of moving parts; even without data caching, access time is going to be much faster without having to spin a platter and wait for a read/write head to go find the required data. I'm just curious as to how fast NVME drives will end up becoming as we start progressing towards quantum computing - should be interesting!

[@richneil5819]

Thanks Scott, clear and concise explanation. I recently converted an older Dell XPS 8500 to an SSD and a fresh Windows 10 install. The improvement in boot and app launch times is remarkable. I remember when the experts said increasing RAM was the best way to increase performance. While adding RAM does help, I never saw performance increases as significant as swapping the mechanical drive for an SSD.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Upgrading RAM definitely helps, but going from mechanical to SSD is like breathing life into a sluggish machine 👍

[@miptzi]

No upgrade jump is greater than a ssd in old machines. It's like a rebirth.

[@eltorocal]

Upgrades in RAM are only seen after the OS has finished loading.

[@thomasmaughan4798]

Windows 10 is poorly written and seems to assume SSD. It starts many threads simultaneously seeking disk; 60 or so threads doing a virus scan, another 60 threads indexing the hard disk, another set of threads synchronizing OneDrive. It clobbers a spin disk but SSD's do not have head seek latency or rotational latency.

[@okkrom]

And for old laptops, as an added bonus, your computer will be lighter, cooler and the battery life will get a (tiny) boost.

[@milospavlovic7520]

Exta bonus: your laptop is now less sensitive to vibrations and therefore safer to use in a bus or car

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@milospavlovic7520 also an excellent point! 👍

[@eltorocal]

Much more than a tiny boost.

[@francoisleveille409]

@@milospavlovic7520 Yup! The solid state advantage. No spinning so no parts wear down - although SSDs do have a life span limit imposed by the maximum possible number of writes.

[@milospavlovic7520]

@@francoisleveille409 Yeah, but unless you are one of a few professions that use a lot of read/write cycles, like video editing for example, you will not reach even near to the full lifespan of your ssd. And if you are, you can just plan ahead that you need to occasionally replace it ahead of time, and to use the high-endurance ssd-s

[@brentpolk8331]

I've been a PC enthusiast for many+MANY years and now I have 4 systems booting from M.2, using SSD's for Abobe & Ai upscaling transfer drives and then 8 HDD for long term storage. It's a great time to be a PC enthusiast!

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Heck yeah! 👍

[@Max_Flashheart]

SSD drive swaps for Laptops works especially well.

[@machdaddy6451]

My customers are ALWAYS impressed when I upgrade them from a HDD to an SSD.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Hard not to be after the first boot to am SSD. Love watching their faces 😂

[@machdaddy6451]

YES. It's a simple upgrade that never fails to impress. I did have a Dell desktop once that had an M.2 slot but shipped with a HDD? That was like finding a unicorn.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@machdaddy6451 THAT is crazy! 😂

[@ChristopherNealBUSHIDO49ERS]

As always this is great work, sir! Thank you!

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Thank you so much! 👍💪

[@notyoung]

I've become an author in my old age (currently 13 books up on Amazon) and laptops are the most convenient PC for me to use: Back hurting from sitting in place X too long? Grab the laptop and move. Using SSDs ensures that motion can never affect the SSD and a drop of a few inches if my hands aren't up to the laptop's weight today won't affect the SSD. Even on a 10-year-old Dell laptop, the SSD makes a VERY obvious improvement. I had to connect an ancient mechanical hard drive to retrieve some archived information and it was S-L-O-W ;-) My longest book is 300,000 words and loading that in Word on a Dell E6420 from 2012 is acceptably fast from the SSD.

[@mickfreeley6054]

Get a 1TB or larger SSD as right now this is the crossover point for GB/$ for HDD vs SSD. As Scott said, M.2 NVMe vs 2.5" SATA depends on your computer options.

[@michaelkeudel8770]

Not really when you can get 2TB NVME's for roughly $70 right now, I've even seen 4TB models around $140, spinning rust can rest in peace these days unless you want even larger drives just for storage.

[@Defender78]

Ive been mounting 120 GB SSDs for my OS, andi'm using my existing HDDs (250GB to 1 TB HDD) where i place my songs and movies and pics, since im more concerned with having my PC turn on and off faster, i can wait 4 seconds for Kiss "Shout it Out Loud" kick on from the HDD. I don't game, so they program start times arent crucial, only the on-off modes. I do have older laptops from the DDR2 era, like Toshiba Satellite LTs which i use to tinker with and go on vacation with aka expendable... and even with SSDs they are a joy to run, even if i have to run Linux Mint or Linux Kubuntu to run the Web faster on.

[@bobstuckrath1805]

Very true. I installed my operating system onto an SSD. Best upgrade ever. I highly recommend it.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

💪💪💪

[@addydiesel6627]

I prefer SSD on laptops

[@markw.4679]

Glad I watched until the end! I was going to ask for a clone video. 🙂 Looks like you already have that covered! I'm looking forward to it 👍‼️

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Next video is a step by step "how to clone" a drive 👍👍👍

[@thomasmaughan4798]

It isn't exactly an "upgrade" more of a change. All SSD's have a WRITE LIMIT and generally ought not to be used where frequent writes and re-writes take place. Also, writing to an SSD is a rather complext process that requires to read an entire "page", update whatever cell needs updating, erase the page, and then write it. You cannot write 0's you can only erase the entire page and then write 1's where you don't want zeroes. (or vice versa depending on the default state of a page once erased). SSD can be very slow writing large numbers of small files, slower than spin disks. Nothing is faster at RANDOM reads particularly of large numbers of small files. SSD's are not good choice for ARCHIVE since the data retention is not infinite. The electric charge on tiny capacitors eventually bleeds out. It takes some years of course.

[@Bassic778]

Excellent comparison video!!!

[@GwG-aka-TheGoatee]

on older laptops - one from 2008, the other from 2010 - I replaced the OS HDD disks with SATA SSD's, and they both started in 30 seconds (give or take a few seconds). So, it works on older computers.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Absolutely! And love the handle 😂

[@Weissenschenkel]

SSDs are a game changer. My mom's PC was a paralyzed slug and now it's a cheetah. Honestly, it's way faster, either to boot up or to start programs. My laptop has dual boot (W10/Ubuntu) and the NVMe is also snappier than any HDD.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Nice! 👍👍👍

[@_J.F_]

After watching this video I went ahead and bought additional 8GB RAM (my Dell desktop will run max 16GB) and a Kingston KC600 drive with an upgrade kit included. It cost me round about $100 and using Acronis, which I had on my desktop already, and following your video on how to clone a hard drive, the total upgrade was super simple and only took a few hours of which my actual work time was probably around 20 minutes. The old desktop is now running like a rocket so I couldn't be more happy with going ahead and doing this very affordable and easy upgrade. I have actually ordered an additional Kingston KC600 drive now that I know how easy it is, so I can do e.g. monthly backups using the cloning method. Thanks for a great series of videos on the subject I was looking for 👍

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Fantastic! That's so great to hear 💪👍❤️

[@farisalosaimi6796]

Thank you for this detailed video and explaining as if the viewer has no experience, might I recommend that you add time stamps so those who know some parts can skip to the parts they want to watch.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Noted, I'll try to incorporate that in future videos 👍

[@jeanbonnefoy1377]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the other obvious perks of solid state drive: the absence of all mechanical parts resulting in no noise, no vibration, less heat and last but certainly not least the sturdiness: no risk of failure following a shock or even a fall.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Benefits for sure. But for 99.98% of people, speed is the bigger issue. Those are just gravy 👍

[@toby9999]

@@AskYourComputerGuy SSD's definitely win on speed, which is why I use them. I get W10 login screen in around 15 secs. Before the upgrade it was around 10mins. But mechanical drives are way more reliable in my opinion (unless dropped or something). So far, my failure rate for SSD's is 50% and when they go, they go really quickly. I haven't had any desktop hard drives fail in over 25 years. They just get retired due to obsolescence. I do daily backups to physical drives because I consider SSDs high risk.

[@userunknown1030]

@@toby9999 yeah and as far as i can tell after start up hdd or only about a 10th of sec behind the other to options so honestly if your doing mostly the same activies i don't see the benefits to the other and like you said they are high risk and have built in death dates after so many reads and rewrites. think most companies moving to this type is for profit plan and simple hdd last way past there rated live spans and that kills profit.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

👍

[@MrSunDevil23]

SSDs are a game changer. Doing IT support for 30 years, when I redo a PC or laptop and replace a mechanical drive with an SSD it brings tears to my client’s eyes. Definitely a cheap alternative to give new life to an aging computer.

[@RAFchurchlawford4469]

You forgot to mention that the short life of the SSD also brings tears to your clients eyes

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@rafchurchlawford4469 that's where having solid backups and even a drive clone come in real handy.

[@MrSunDevil23]

Knock on wood-I haven’t had an SSD fail on me and I’ve been using them since they were SUPER expensive and very small. In fact, I still have an 80 Gb Intel SSD that I bought many years ago.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@scott4918 lucky you! I've had a couple go bad, and some of them have lasted longer than expected 🤷‍♂️

[@MrSunDevil23]

Obviously they aren’t used for important data!! Love your channel, keep it up!!

[@Klojum]

I noticed the benefits of SSDs right away when they first came out some 10 years ago. I started with the first OCZ Vertex SSD (I bought two, one failed after 4 months and the other STILL works today!), I have not bought any HDDs for booting a PC or laptop since. Of course, big storage HDDs capable of 8TB and more are a different matter.

[@oldgamer1330]

I personally would never use any bigger than 1TB, if you loose an 8 TB you will loose a lot of stuff. I would rather 8, 1TB and a much less chance of loosing all 8 drives and 8, 1TB is a less to buy than an 8TB.

[@davinp]

On Windows 11, the Windows Subsystem for Android requires an SSD and so does Google Play Games Beta for PC

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

👍

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Just another reason to avoid Windows 11 then.

[@mikegrok]

I have been experimenting with stable diffusion on my desktop using my archival drive (spinning rust) it was taking 6 minutes to load the model then 1 minute to process it. I upgraded to an Intel d7-p5600($369) and it takes 2 seconds to load the files now.

[@enadio5164]

Amazing video. I've changed hundreds of hard drives to solid states for years for my friends and family. May I suggest that you can buy an hdd enclosure in order for your old hdd to be an external drive. (specially for laptop users who have no other sata\m2 slot)

[@bellshooter]

Plus one here, I use a usb to hdd cable shucked from an 'ineo' hdd enclosure. Or for m.2 a 'Milipow' usb dock.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Thanks for the tip!

[@THE-michaelmyers]

When I assembled my current desktop I installed NVMe for my operating system on the MB. I get really incredible speeds. I have another NVMe for data needs when speed makes life easier. I then keep an old platter HD for my long-term data storage where speed is unimportant. Because I am a systems engineer I keep large amounts of data and make more all the time. In fact, after the first of the year, I will be spending several weeks in Western Europe helping troubleshoot a system I finished designing. I looked at the folder where that data is stored and it is almost 2 GB of data. I agree with the channel owner about his comments about keeping advice simple. This is why I recommend if you don't understand the difference between NVMe from SATA, or don't understand what a socket means as well as what memory speeds mean, PLEASE don't buy anything until you have spoken to somebody who does. Last year I got a phone call from a man who had just purchased a MB and a processor and could not figure out why his system had no video. It just so happened I had a processor that had graphics onboard that fit his socket.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

👍

[@Nufsed007]

Thanks Scott, picked up that docking station on Amazon in the UK for £45, fantastic piece of kit.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Good choice!

[@Ian-q7r]

Another practical video, thanks. The "Sabrent HDD/SSD/NVMe m.2 dock and offline cloner" is available from Amazon down here in Sydney, Australia, for about the same price as you gave (post free as I have a Prime account). I'm worried about longevity of SSDs but this unit will help me to make regular clones of my SSD hard-drives as backups. 73, Ian

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Nice! And highly recommended. Jury's still out about SSD longevity, but no argument at all about speed difference. Use SSD for your operating system and store your data on HDD and you should never have an issue 👍

[@skorpian34]

My old desktop from boot to usability was approx 45 minutes. Even with a good quality 9600 rpm seagate HDD. After switching to a Samsung EVO SSD that time dropped to 2 minutes! All your file conversions, file copy or transfers, video editing, maintenance scans and backups now happen in a few minutes. My pc saw a whole new life and I started enjoying it again. VERY WORTH IT. Since the system is being opened up to install the drive that's also a perfect time to also max out your ram.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Very nice!

[@KaptainCnucklz]

Running a Dell Optiplex pre-built PC that I converted into a lower end gaming system. SSD was a huge boost in performance on most of my games, my loading screens are shorter, my frame timings in games is way smoother, and booting my PC is no longer something that takes nearly 5 minutes each morning. Not to mention launching any programs or games is only a few seconds. Love it.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Nice!

[@fragalot]

The one thing to keep in mind is that if your PC does not have an M.2 connector, and you buy an addon PCIe card to use a M.2 SSD, you will be able to use it, but you will likely NOT be able to boot from it. BIOS needs to support NVMe in order to boot from a M.2 drive, and it's likely your motherboard's BIOS will not have that support that if it never had a M.2 connector. You might find BIOS updates that allow older motherboards to support NVMe but it's likely NOT from the manufacture of your motherboard. Often they are 3rd party hacks and that can come with risks bricking your motherboard if you use the wrong BIOS. There are tools you can build your own custom BIOS, and install the libraries you need (e.g. NVMe), but again, it's risky, unless your motherboard has a button on the back for emergency BIOS flashes from a USB stick so you can bring it back to original settings.

[@mickfreeley6054]

Good point. For older machines 2.5" SATA SSDs are dirt cheap so just go with that option instead. Cheapest decent drives (Team, Silicon Power) on Newegg right now are 250 GB for $17.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Good points. I recently found out that not all computers can boot from an M.2 NVMe SSD when installed via PCIe adapter board. It could still be used as a storage drive, but could not be booted from.

[@fragalot]

@@mickfreeley6054Yes they are PERFECT for old laptops that still have a 2.5" SATA drive in them.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Good tip

[@NoEgg4u]

@1:14 -- The M.2 designation does not determine its interface. M.2 is a form factor. There are M.2 drives that use the SATA interface, and will perform no differently than a 2.5" SSD. NVMe SSD drives, in the M.2 form factor, are faster than SATA based SSDs So anyone looking to purchase an M.2 NVMe drive should make sure that it is actually and NVMe drive (and not an M.2 SATA drive). Nearly all M.2 drives are NVMe based. But perhaps someone might find a good deal on eBay, and then find out that its low price due to being SATA based. Also, all drives are digital, with the exception of tape drives. There are mechanical drives, and there are solid state drives. Both store data digitally. Lastly, depending on the SSD drive, many of them will slow down to slower speeds than a fast mechanical drive. Few people will experience that slow-down, because for that slow-down to occur, you have to write loads and loads of gigabytes to the SSD, without rest. SSDs store their data in NAND flash cells. Not all NAND flash cells are built the same. There are extremely fast ones, and there are very slow ones, and everything in-between. Nearly all consumer level SSD are comprised of a split between the fast NAND cells and the slow NAND cells, with the bulk of the SSD made from the slow NAND cells (which costs less -- a lot less). When you write data to your SSD, it will always be written to the fast NAND cells, assuming you have any available (and 99.9999% of the time, you will). So users virtually always see their SSD performing at warp speed. But if you run a job that writes enough gigabytes of data, non-stop, to the SSD, then when the fast NAND cells are fully used, the drive will have no choice but to then start writing to the slower NAND cells, and performance will drop like a brick. How bad the performance will become will depend on the drive model. Some high-end consumer level SSDs will slow down a little. Low-end SSDs will slow down to under 50 MB/s. Chia crypt-o plotting is an example of a process that will write enough GBs of data to your SSD, to fill up its fast NAND cells. But your SSD is always very fast. Doesn't the small, fast NAND cells get filled up? When the drive is idle, which for most of us is most of the time, the drive's controller moves the data from the fast NAND cells to the slow NAND cells. So you will always have fast NAND cells that are free. There is no way to monitor that activity. The drive does that, independent of the operating system. And since the slow NAND cells are slow, only for writing data, then when you read your data from the slow NAND cells, you get very fast performance. There is a reason why some SSDs cost far more than other SSDs. A main reason is how the drive performs when it runs out of fast NAND cells, or the drive might have a lot more of the fast NAND cells. There are drives that are made from 100% of the fast NAND cells, and you might have to mortgage your home to purchase them. But they will never slow down, no matter how long you hit them with data. They are enterprise and data center grade SSDs, typically in the U.2 format. @5:17 -- Macrium reflect discontinued its free version.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

I'm picturing all the novice computer users looking at you with their heads clocked sideways right now. And yes they did. Except up to version 8.1 (which I link to to), and Macrium publicly states is fine to still download...for "free". Just no support.

[@NoEgg4u]

@@AskYourComputerGuy It is not helpful to tell "novice" users that only SS drives are digital, when 100% of drives are digital. It is not helpful to tell "novice" users that M.2 is a communications type, when it is a form factor. Is it your opinion that because someone is a novice, that it is okay to give them incorrect information? I understand that you want to keep it simple. But no where did you convey that this is for novice users, until you read my comment. You are not a novice user, and you got it wrong. Wouldn't you have liked to have learned the difference between a communications protocol and a form factor when you were a novice? "I'm picturing all the novice computer users looking at you with their heads clocked sideways right now." I do not have a medical degree. You would need to sit with a professional and explain your imaginings. But a good imagination is healthy.

[@fragalot]

3:08 "Digital Hard Drive?" Umm.. isn't all data storage "digital," even old floppy drives and tape drives? Magnetic media isn't exactly analog, unless you get down to how the platters are encoded with magnetism, but all the data is still 1's and 0's, therefore digital. What you really mean is Solid State, that's what the SS stands for in "SSD" afterall, which simply means all electronic parts, no mechanical moving parts.

[@williamjones7821]

Please consider the new $10 external USB enclosures (that fit a 2.5" SSD) for backing up your files. USB enclosures for mechanical drives are larger and involve AC adapters and extension cords, which can be a hassle. My SSD USB enclosure has just one wire, and can handle cache-less super-cheap SSDs (under $50) for backup.

[@Micharus]

I shifted (cloned) my OS to an M.2 drive on my PC and the difference in boot speed is to say, startling. On the laptop side of things, I have an old Toshiba A660 gaming laptop and the battery just wasn't charging anymore. I called a place for a new one and while I was waiting on that, bought a 1TB SSD to put in it. A really odd thing happened when I went to install Win 10 on the SSD, now installed in the laptop..... the battery started to charge again, so double win. Old laptop with a new OS and SSD in it and no battery to buy. I called the place I was getting the battery from to cancel my order, would have been a dick move not to. Now all I need to do is find two 4 GB ram sticks that are compatible with the laptop, a little difficult being DDR3!

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Check Crucial.com, you'll find it there 👍

[@Enjoymentboy]

I have an older HP powerbook that I use to control one of my 3D printers. It used to have a 500Gb WD blue 7000k rpm slim drive and boot times for Win 10 were 2+ minutes to get to the desktop with all background apps up and fully loaded. I recently installed an older 128GB Intel SSD I had kicking around, cloned the drive, changed no settings and boot time from dead off to fully running is now sub 30 seconds. This alone is worth the upgrade.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Nice!

[@NickDV007]

Enjoyed the video Scott - every day's a school day for me where computers are concerned! 😉Thanks for sharing.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@GamingKing545]

An SSD, being notably swifter, can tangibly reduce loading times, particularly on older hardware configurations.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Agreed!

[@jp51552]

Hello. I've got two questions: 1 - Is there a maximum write count for an SSD/M.2 drive? 2 - How long will the data be maintained if it is stored for example in it's original packaging for months or years?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Not sure on max write count. And the drive should be plugged in and accessed every few months at minimum

[@minnesotarascal7453]

I've never regretted swapping an HDD for an SSD as a primary (OS) drive and every SSD I've ever owned, I still own, still use, and haven't failed me yet. (Not referring to M.2's, but the one I have is also solid so far.) I still use HDD's for storage in almost all my builds, so they're by no means obsolete.

[@briankleinschmidt3664]

I made a a lot of little old ladies happy swapping out their spinning rust. I made some coin, too. - Several years ago. Yes, you have to upgrade. It's a no brainer. Where have you been?

[@dianaalyssa8726]

SSDs and nvmes have always been worth putting the OS on.

[@ColinsGardenRailway]

Only Issue I have with this is that here in Australia, wholesalers are charging $90 for a PNY 1Tb SSD so by the time it gets to retail your looking around $120 . Why are prices in the USA so cheap ???

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Ouch. Maybe adjustment for distance to ship?

[@Bozemanjustin]

Anxiously awaiting your next video on switching from rotary phones to digital dial Lol I think this video might be about 10 years behind

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

You'd be surprised how many people still have mechanical drives 👍

[@jeffb.6642]

10 years ago SSDs were just starting to become affordable for regular consumers, and if you wanted to fit one in a modest build you had to go with a 120 or even 60 GB drive to keep within budget. Forget about anything bigger unless you felt like devoting half of the budget to your storage solution. And back then there was not as stark of a difference because Windows 7 and 8/8.1 were not built around the assumption that the user would have one, so they ran "fine" on a mechanical drive. It's really only when we were a couple years into the life cycle of Windows 10 that Windows started all of it's background bloat hammering disk I/O that the SSD really became necessary. And yes, there are still folks with mechanical drives - though I do think that nowadays it's hard to find a new computer for sale that doesn't have an SSD of some kind, thank god.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@jeffb.6642 👍

[@samuraiwarriorsunite]

I use Macrium Reflect and a USB 3.0 to SATA adapter cable that has a transfer speed of 5Gbps. It's very convenient because you can clone an HDD to an SSD for greater speed or clone a backup SSD of your operating system just in case.

[@DrumHaX74]

If you buy the “PNY upgrade kit”, it comes with an external usb to sata cable and cloning software

[@TYRASSA]

I love your explanation of a mechanical drive to a digital drive. Mechanical drives are like record players but who else knows what a record player is these days, haha. 😄

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

💪

[@butmunchass]

Mechanical drives store information digitally. Data can be either analog or digital and both HDDs and SSDs store the information digitally. The presenter is sort of in error in how he presents this. It's basically like saying that a racing motorbike is faster because it burns gasoline and that a 4 wheel car is slower because its much larger. (How is a motorbike faster because it burns gasoline when the 4 wheel car also burns gasoline?)

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@butmunchass the presenter was trying to explain SSD vs HDD. To a novice, it's easier to understand "all-digital vs mechanical" then "technically a mechanical drive stores data digitally also, by writing a series of 1's and 0's to a polycarbonate drive spindle spinning at a minimum of 5400 rpm". I'm appealing to a novice user here. Average people understand mechanical vs digital. They don't care about the technical specs, unless I'm specifically comparing technical specs for the purpose of a video. Sorry the verbiage offended you.

[@butmunchass]

I understand your point but I'd suggest something such as "mechanical vs electronic" or "mechanical vs non-moving parts". The problem is that the word "digital" is so often misused in this respect that people end up going around parroting what they heard and it becomes a situation where other people don't really know what they are talking about. For example I have family members that have asked me to "download" their pictures from a memory card to the system drive and this becomes silly.@@AskYourComputerGuy

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@butmunchass verbiage is always a tough issue when dealing with novices. I still have people ask me to check out their "modem" (tower LOL). I try to simply as much as I can on my channel because my audience is *those* people. They don't care so much about the symantecs...they just want to understand the basic differences. You're not wrong, just don't want to overwhelm the "basic folks". That's what I do 💪

[@PatrickGoodspeed]

SSD are the way to go. Only reason to have a mechanical hard drive is if you need a lot of space for storing files (like 4TB plus.) Even then I would recommend haveing the boot drive be an SSD and having the mechanical as a secondary drive.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Agreed. Will be making a follow-up video, as I have angered the "experts" 👍

[@Coffeeenjoyer31]

I still own HDD for my home media server stuff and bulk storage, but aside from that the price is definitely worth buying SSD for boot drive and secondary drives for games etc.

[@MichaelDomer]

It depends on what that drive is used for, I always use a traditional (internal) spinning drive for automated backups, it's way cheaper, and doesn't need to be super fast.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Agreed. Until it dies. Always best to have a second backup for critical data

[@H2VPROEternal]

Can you make a video on types of SSDs like SLC, MLC, TLC and QLC thanks and each of the benefits

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

That might make for an interesting video. I'll put it on the drawing board 👍

[@greglarsen3248]

Just asking if setting up the drive in Windows drive management is needed? Thanks.

[@DIYDaveOK]

Having done multiple spinning-rust swaps for even SATA SSDs, I absolutely say it is worth the effort. It's like breathing new life into an older laptop.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

1000% agreed

[@jeffjankiewicz5100]

I have upgraded all drives to SSD. My tower, laptop, daughters pc, her mom`s laptop. All were running slow. Cleaned the junk files, cloned their original mechanical one. They are all running faster. All pcs had a sata connector, and I have a usb to sata adapter, made cloning simple. All our pcs do not support M2 drives. Personally, my laptop took 1:54 to boot vs 0:55 with SSD. We cannot afford a new pc, so I just keep them running.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Nice! 👍

[@okohlawrence2466]

Very helpful. Thanks for the education

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@WayneWatson1]

On my customer's systems, I prioritize ram, then hdd to ssd. 99.9% of the time I get complaints from people about it being slow, it's because windows 10/11 is being run on systems 8gb or less and it's hammering a hdd and it's nerve rackingly slow. A friend bought a brand new system from dell and the idiots sold him 8gb and a hdd for windows 11. They told him he would have to pay for support because it wasn't a failure that was part of warranty, which was true, however, it was their stupidity for selling him a slow machine to begin with. Now, I could have just added 8gb more and it would have been like a new system, but it would have still been slow to boot and run programs. Also, adding an ssd alone would have made everything faster, including it using a paging file like mad. Still, they are BOTH cheap and together, makes system like new. I have done this to a lot of laptops also and it's like a new system and they are very happy they don't have to spend 3-7 hundred on a new system, only about $50. I always do windows 10/11 memory upgrades to 12-16gb. So, they don't even hit a page file to begin with, or rarely and even if they do, it's going to an ssd. I just use Acronis True Image to do clones of the hdd to ssd. It's never failed me

[@yips_way]

A heads up to anyone in the UK. I just bought a 4TB 870 EVO SSD as Samsung are currently offering cashback of up to £50 on many flavours of Samsung SSD's. Wanted one for ages for space & backup & this offer made the one I bought come in at "only" £140 (c$170) which was low enough for me to take the plunge. Offer ends 9th Octover 2023 so a few weeks left from the time of this post if anyone is looking. 👍

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Good to know! 👍

[@Printer_combustible]

Ah dammit i missed this

[@yips_way]

@@Printer_combustible Keep checking if you want one in future as it's often repeated, sometimes for more cashback. BUT beware, the place I bought mine from (SCAN UK) increased their prices the day AFTER I bought mine by the cashback amount. I won't be using them in future! Very sneaky & underhanded & I'm glad I caught the offer before they had time to increase the price. Luckily I knew the rough price of the SSD as I had been checking them regularly.

[@yips_way]

Oh wow - just checked SCAN UK out of interest & the price is now over £250. Wonder why it's so high now, low supply?..or is there a big cashback somewhere so they raised their prices again 🤔 Keep a check on prices is my conclusion!

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@yips_way 👍

[@relaxingnature2617]

Fail: no mention of the difference between SATA , M.2 SATA , M.2 NVME -- m.2 form factor doesnt make it faster -- its only faster if its nvme

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

👍

[@peterschmidt9942]

I've used Macrim Reflect before an I'm pretty sure it only copies up to a certain amount of partitions (not enough for your regular Windows factory install). Considering you're installing a Crucial SSD, its generally better to use their Acronis software and that will clone as many partitions as you through at it. I ended up doing this years ago with an ASUS laptop I had. When I purchased it, it's specs were up there. Not the fastest but not far off - it had an A10 AMD with 16GB RAM. Swapping over even to a SATA SSD sped it up considerably from read speeds of 100MBS to generally 400-500MBs. I got at least another 3 years out of it (8yrs total) until there was a dodgey Windows update that aided in bricking the mother board LOL. After a replacement MOBO was sourced, it got a new lease on life for my daughter. It still runs Windows 10 pretty well. Considering the cost of the SSD was about $150 for a 1TB, certainly cheaper than the $1500 for a new laptop at the time. But as you said, you also have to look at what external peripherals ports you have. Not much point upgrading something that only has USB2.0 connections unless you're re-purposing and already have the hardware there from another computer.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Can't speak to that. I think mine had at least 5-6 partitions and it copied fine. If not, there is always other programs out there without those limitations 👍

[@peterschmidt9942]

@@AskYourComputerGuy You' might have an older version of the software? I'm sure I used it years ago as well to copy over and it worked as you said. But the latest version might be limited as I wasn't able to use it recently.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@peterschmidt9942 the link in the description is to Macrium 8.1 which is the last version you can use for free, per Macrium. Same version I use in the video 👍

[@what_321]

Hi Scott; When I switched to the local account, it did not keep my KZbin subs!! Just letting you know.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

That doesn't make sense. Your KZbin subscribers are displayed through your Google account. Has zero to do with Microsoft in any way

[@what_321]

OK. Thanks for the correction. My first mistake, all year. I think I did create a NEW Google account, to go along with my local acct.@@AskYourComputerGuy

[@Jamesrdc]

Great sound control. What mic do you use?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Believe it or not...this one :) amzn.to/46TqbP0

[@elwoodfanwwod]

Good info, good vid. Little dsapointed that you didn't touch on SATA bottlenecks and SATA limits or the insanely cheap prices for large HHDs and HHD RAIDs for back up.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Fair. But for most average people, even without the the finer points, the differences between the 3 variants alone might be enough to make them want to upgrade 👍

[@andrew21030]

Ive got an old hp envy 17 from 2012 with 2nd gen i7, 8gb ram and hdds. Im wanting to bring it back to life and get it decent, is there any point putting an ssd in it. It already has the maximum amount of ram and processor is old old. Itll be used to scan cars and at the minute takes more than 10 minutes to get the software up to do it.

[@jeffdeal1162]

Just repaired a dual core 7th gen i3 laptop for a lady, put an old 120 GB Intel drive I had laying around in it with new windows. She was astonished how fast it was. Funny I think that was my first SSD I ever bought. Now I have quite a few TB of them, about to get a MP34 4TB TLC. Any SSD is better than any HDD regardless, but stay away from QLC.

[@WayneWatson1]

Did you boot the hdd and ssd clones from your external dock you were using? If so, no wonder it was 9min and 1min. I've gone from 5min internal to 25sec internal for hdd/ssd

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

No from the main board. My BIOS always takes forever for some reason. Gotta look into that at some point, but all three were done the same way to keep it consistent 👍

[@WayneWatson1]

@@AskYourComputerGuy gotcha. Was just curious. That did seem like a long time for ssd but if was a clone of your current system, it's definately possible.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@WayneWatson1 👍

[@icecreamjunkie6790]

I got a cheap “gaming” laptop in December 2018 with a 1 TB HDD. The build quality was awful and after I had to send it in twice for repair within a year, I decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. I got a new laptop with nearly identical specs but an M.2 NVMe SSD. Night and day difference. I knew that SSDs were significantly better, but I had NO idea until I actually had an SSD. Absolute night and day difference. I could never go back. Fast forward to 2024 where I now work in IT. Most of our computers have SSDs but working on the few computers we still have with HDDs is a complete nightmare. I genuinely don’t know how people deal with it.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Been doing it 30 years. You have no idea how lucky you are. You should see my boxes of dead HDDs 😂

[@Mattsta432]

There is one thing you didn't clarify in the video, were you using fast boot up which is on by default I think or was it disabled. I have a sata ssd with windows 10 on it. With fast boot up enabled, from startup to desktop screen I timed it at around 25 seconds. With a normal boot up it takes around 5 and a half minutes to get to desktop screen.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

👍

[@shanepatrick641]

@@AskYourComputerGuy???

[@oldgamer1330]

I try to reclone my 120gb C drive every 2 weeks just to keep it up to date incase I pick up a bug or something and my 4 1TB storage drives about each month. Reflect is the best Clone software out there but like all clone software you need to take your time and double check that you are cloning from the right drive to the right drive.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

100% agreed

[@rtcurtis5858]

Very nice. On my 21.5” 2012 iMac the sata ssd was stellar. Im on an older macOS but I just use it to watch KZbin. I could update it with a known hack but probably not.

[@nycbearff]

I just put a cheap 500gb SSD in a friend's old laptop that only has 4gb memory. I installed MX linux with a 20 gb swap partition, and it's working really nicely. It's not zippy - but it's way faster than it was with the old hard drive and Windows 10 on it - that was impossibly slow. it'll be great for day to day things. And with lots of things open simultaneously, using all the memory and 4gb of the swap, there was only a little slowdown - the SSD is fast enough that the swap file works really well. It'll never be a gaming laptop, but I'm really happy with the result.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Well done 💪👍

[@rudrabarathan2737]

Brilliant information. thanks

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Glad it was helpful!

[@PatrickDAllen1]

Well, my ten year old MSI laptop with an old mechanical, spinny HDD still seems to boot into Win 11's log on screen within about thirty seconds... Maybe another twentyish seconds to log in and load the desktop. I think that's very usable for my needs. People keep telling me it should be way slower because it's an old HDD. What am I doing wrong?!? 😢

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Nothing. Ignore them and enjoy your laptop 👍

[@PatrickDAllen1]

@AskYourComputerGuy I honestly can't believe the whole laptop is in such amazing shape. I've dropped it a few times, yet every piece of hardware inside seems to still be running great. I did a drive health check and the HDD isn't even beginning to show signs of failure. That thing is a... Beast. I was thinking of getting an SSD to connect externally, but I'll wait until the HDD seems to actually have any real issues. 🫡

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@PatrickDAllen1 probably a good idea 👍

[@PatrickDAllen1]

@AskYourComputerGuy I mean SSDs are cheap now, yeah, but it's still money spent when the old drive is still working great. For only a little boost in write speeds and load times.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@PatrickDAllen1 the key is that you have the knowledge. Now, apply it when and if you ever need it :)

[@retropcscotland4645]

TEMU sell m.2 pcie cards for those with spare slots and older machines. I ordered some to test.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Let me know how it works out 👍

[@retropcscotland4645]

@@AskYourComputerGuy I will brother as soon as it get's here from China. You know how long that takes lol.

[@Dannymclovin]

Have an old computer was wondering if there was a difference on just replacing a 7 year old hdd with a new one

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

I would definitely recommend going to SSD, you'll see a huge difference in performance! Clone that sucker and see what happens!

[@Yinzzy656]

b4 I even watch this video. YES YES YES YES YES ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT. It's the one best thing you can do to your pc to improve the speed immensely.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Yep!!! 👍

[@molly_mallard]

My boot time into Win11 with a Crucial T700 Gen5 M.2 is just several seconds. I use mechanical drives in my NAS because speed is not too much of an issue.

[@TheRealLaughingGravy]

I'm still using the desktop PC I bought in 2010. Last year, I finally took the plunge and cloned my rackety old 1 TB HDD to an SSD (a Samsung 870 EVO). The process went smoothly - much easier than I'd feared, and was surprisingly inexpensive. I used Samsung's free software to clone the drive. Around the same time my computer's memory started going bad, so I replaced that as well (and went from 8 to 16 GB). The difference is stunning. It's like I have a new computer (sort of). It still won't run Windows 11, of course, but you can't have everything.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

I'd count that Windows 11 issue as a blessing! LOL good job 👍

[@erojohn2]

Are the SDD model specific for HP laptops or one size fits all? Also do the drives have to be formatted for FAT or does the cloning processes do that automatically? I don’t use the laptop that often. Things seem to go quicker on the iPhone. Maybe I would use it more if it was quicker with this upgrade to SSD. I enjoy your videos immensely. Thank you.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

A 2.5" mechanical laptop drive is the same size physically as a 2.5" SSD drive, so it's an exact swap, connectors and all. Only exception is you have a laptop with IDE connection, but those haven't been made in 20 years. You don't need to format, the cloning process does that. I do when I clone because, as shown in the video, i want to visually see the target drive labeled before I start. But you can just select the unallocated drive and clone. It does the same. A lot of people are OCD like me, so I add that extra step for them 👍

[@milospavlovic7520]

@@AskYourComputerGuy I have seen some weird stuff from early ssd days, I think on hp professional laptops from circa 2014. I don't think it was msata or something else uncommon but standard, I think it was proprietary. However I haven't seen anything like that on anything newer, the weirdest thing being occasional msata or shorter m.2

[@bobg1685]

Nicely done. Thanks.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Thanks for watching! 💪👍

[@fragalot]

Did you do these tests with all three drives plugged directly into the motherboard? Not from the USB drive dock you have? (For which I don't see the link for that Sabrent drive dock with the M.2 port in the description) A M.2 drive over USB would be terribly slow going about 460mb/s performing like a SATA SSD. Also you didn't mention the importance of CACHE on SSD. Cheap drives often have no cache and often perform much slower than they should with comparable drives of different brands that cost a bit more that do have cache. Sure they still perform faster than HDDs, but even HDDs have cache. SSDs without cache will run speedy for reading/writing smaller files, but large file transfers will quickly slow down to a crawl.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Yes, connected to the main board not via usb which would be crazy slow! I'll check the link again but I'm pretty sure it's in there. Just checked, it's there: amzn.to/3t1OETv👍

[@rhari9496]

I would like to get an external drive that can store personal files long time and as well as a few files or games that can be run on the go. Is SSD a good option? Also, is pendrive a good option for a long time backup for small sized files?

[@michaelcloutier2225]

I think it would have been good to show Crystal Disk Mark tests for the drives and practical file tarnfers tests.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Not a bad idea. Maybe in a future video. Thx for the great suggestion! 👍

[@TuanTran-qk9my]

I'm now using a cheap nvme ssd + a wd black hdd on my laptop. Pretty solid with price per performance. Windows OS must be installed on SSD because M$ make it's now running with more and more stuffs on startup. I choose using the hdd for photos, docs ,light games and softwares what I know exactly the loading time of them comparing with the SSD. The HDD looks like slower but in my case it's more suitable with my internet speed at home around 30-40 Mb/s so If I download something,I don't need a faster drive which don't need caugh up with the internet speed. And with my personal workstyle , I save many copys in a small folder in bigger and bigger folders above so when copying small stuffs like that, the cheap ssd can't keep the write speed sometimes lower than the HDD.

[@MrMockingbird1313]

Excellent video. Does an SSD drive consume more or less power than a mechanical drive? I am worrid out over taxing my power supply.

[@ernestgalvan9037]

SSD always have a lower power consumption. No electric motor to spin the platter, no electric coils moving disk heads back and forth…

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Your power supply can handle it. It uses maybe a tiny bit less than an HDD

[@ssnerd583]

I bought a cheap Thinkpad off amazon back in 2016...it was a bottom of the line AMD processor 14" that some company had bought up and put SSDs in and the one I got had a 256Gb SSD and was $350 shipped. That same SSD that was in that computer is NOW in the 4th different, but identical, laptop since then. It still works great, WIN7 and all. I do NOT think that if I had started out with a regular HDD that it would have lasted this long. I built my first computer in 1991 and have gone through more than a FEW computers and laptops and HDD's in my time.

[@gl5638]

I don't know about theses Macrium guys, it asks for a registration code when you try to install the free version, you have to enter an email and you receive an email from them saying follow link below to get your registration code and you go there and all it does is ask for your name an email -again- and also your phone number (!!!!) and says "the team" will get back to you but nobody has gotten back to me yet and i still do not have a registration code and installation -and the rest of the pc- is hanging in mid air, -until i scratch it.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

If you download from Macrium, your downloading the new version. Follow the link I the description. No code needed, just download and install 👍

[@gl5638]

OK i figured it out, when you run the install for the free version there is an option which is selected by default for registering the program. If you deselect this option -click the radio button- and continue it gets installed without any problem.

[@n5ifi]

I just updated my fedora Linux installation to ssd with a mx500 crucial and the difference is night and day. My m.2 is being used on a windows 10 install that I hardly use except for some gaming. Grub takes care of it all no problem and I really cant tell much difference between the m.2 and the Sata. I know the m.2 is faster but the difference is not huge between it and the sata.

[@staneversham9531]

I have a 22 year old Seagate 250GB drive that have been used almost 24/7 its entire life. It still works perfect with no bad sectors. Do you think your SSD drive will make it that long?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

LOL not a chance 😂

[@RONBONIX]

WOW!! Amazing... Thank you! :)

[@leovanorden4243]

Thank you for the education! I have Acronis installed on my desktop. Can you comment on the use of Acronis vs Macrium Reflect for the purpose of cloning an HHD to an SSD? Which one is better to use? Thank you.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Both are great. Macrium is a little more user friendly IMO but both are quality programs 👍

[@K9TheFirst1]

One correction I would make is this: M.2 drives are all SSDs, Solid State Drives. They just have a different physical connection.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

That fair. I was trying to just keep it simple for average folks. If I started digging too much into form factors and PCI lanes and such, it would have gotten confusing. Especially given the fact that I'd imagine it's a very small group of people who have a mechanical drive in a m.2-capable machine. It's hard to strike that balance for the viewers sometimes, so I primarily focused on mechanical vs SSD as a whole. But you're not wrong 👍

[@lizzieandbob1]

Thank you for these videos. Our computer is in the shop right now. The computer is old (2010). We were told mother board and hard drive are the problem. We are upgrading to a used system. Question they only had a 500 mg Solid state hard drive on hand. They are also moving a second hard drive I had installed recently into the old computer, which is 2tb. Can I clone the 500mg hard drive with another 2tb hard drive without causing it to make partitions?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

When you clone a drive, the new drive will be overwritten with all the data and partitions from the source drive

[@martincruiz7976]

Just a question for clarification here. When you use the Sabrent USB docking station one still needs to download the Macrium Reflect software to the hard disk drive in order to clone that drive to the SSD? When you said it was a stand alone cloner I thought maybe no software program was needed. I'm a newbie to this process.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Incorrect. The Sabrent cloner can work offline as well, no software needed. Macrium is my choice for "in use" cloning but if you have an SSD you want to clone to m.2, you can do it all disconnected from any computer 👍

[@gins8781]

If you are upgrading to SSD which has more GB storage than the HDD you are cloning, does the cloning device automatically expand the SSD’S partition to its full capacity? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I know very, very little about computers. I have merely seen this topic addressed in another video. Can’t recall who the content creator was or the exact context.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@gins8781 by default it will duplicate partitions. You can go to Windows disc management and extend your OS partition in about 5 seconds, no problem

[@HauntedBranch]

Hey would you Defragment a HDD drive before Cloning to a SSD drive?

[@qualityflooringmanitousprings]

I think that type of upgrade would be more like upgrading from a turtle to a jet!

[@KWPZ21]

I'm more interested in the question "Which drive last longer?"

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Depends on how many writes, I suppose 😂🤷‍♂️

[@jeffb.6642]

It's a toss up, I work for an IT firm and SSDs seem to fail at about a similar rate of HDDs.

[@SuperLaplander]

Thank you sir!

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

You are welcome!

[@Reevesi]

I have made so many people happy by just replacing their Sata HDD with a SSD in their 10 year old laptops. Boot time of 40 secs. All programs are really snappy. It's like a brand new laptop. I did a fresh install of Windows 10. SSD's are really cheap at the moment so a really cheap fix. Also I bought a Sata to USB adapter for £5 to connect old laptop HDD and copy any files needed from it. Can also use that HDD now as an external drive with the adapter.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

100% agreed

[@robertpearson8546]

Black/White thinking. Put the OS on a part of an SSD and keep your hard drive for data and backup. Good design is to separate programs from data. Put Windows in a separate partition so when Windows corrupts the file system, only the system files need to be checked. Your boot drive should be an SSD (NVMe preferred) using a GUID partition table, the UEFI partition, the Windows partition, the Windows recovery partition, and the rest as a data partition. (Or add a Linux partition and a swap partition for Linux and Windows.)

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Touched on this exact point for those who only have one drive: How to guarantee ZERO data loss if Windows crashes kzbin.info/www/bejne/enS0mWqqndCMrKs